I know exactly what you must be asking yourself...

What could have possessed me to take on such an abominable project as this? I honestly do not have an answer. Perhaps it was the loneliness I had been feeling off and on throughout the past few months since Eric and I parted ways. I longed for something more than an empty apartment when I arrived home but my luck with meeting someone new had hit an all-time low. I was tired of spending my weekends sitting at the Red Door Pub while would-be suitors approached me and carried on inebriated conversations with my breasts. Is it really that difficult to look someone in the eyes while talking with them? Although, I guess if a guy is drunk enough that he is going to see double, why not focus on something that will allow him to see quadruple instead?

Besides, Eric had left me...shall we say, uninterested in human companionship for now. I wanted a silent friend. One who wouldn't be able to critique me constantly; tell me how childish I was being; or question my every decision. A pet would be the perfect fill-in for the moment. And it would probably be cleaner than Eric had ever been our entire three years together.

But this is no reasonable explanation for wanting to build a companion. Why did I not just buy a pet like normal people would do? Perhaps it had something to do with that supressed megalomaniacal part of me which longed to do something which would be forever talked about and heralded as one of the greatest accomplishments in history. Who would be more famous than the mortal who achieved what had, heretofore, only been attributed to the Divine? If I could succeed in such an endeavor, I could have much more than my fifteen minutes of fame.

Parts would be easy to acquire. Impounded animals were disposed of in massive numbers every day. I was certain that it would not be difficult to find a less than upstanding employee who would, for a significant price, allow me to retrieve what I would need. From there, it would simply be a matter of piecing together the corporeal jigsaw puzzle...some heavy-duty stitch work to give the creature form. Breathing life into this patchwork form would be more tedious an endeavor, but I had faith that I would succeed by consulting the manual penned by the very first executrix of such macabre machinations. Oh, how I now curse the day I ever laid eyes upon that abhorrent text!

Night after night I toiled over my creature's frame, piecing it together with inhuman patience as I made certain that every detail was as precise as possible. No mother could have tended to her child more lovingly than I tended to this abomination. But what I felt when finally I had completed my work was far from the elation which I had hoped to feel. When it rose from the floor on shaking legs and locked its mismatched gaze upon me, I cringed with horror and fear at what I had done. What had I done? It moved a step closer and raised its head slightly, sniffing the air once as it continued to study me with that evil eye. My God, what could it be thinking? Tufts of fur bristled unevenly across its back as it sniffed once more in my direction and I knew that it could smell the loathing I felt towards it at that moment. Afraid of what might occur if I remained but too frightened to move from where I stood, I simply watched as it moved from side to side as though it were rehearsing steps remembered from its (their?) days spent in the pound.

And then it was gone. Even now, I barely know how to explain it. The creature (I will never be able to bring myself to refer to it as anything other than a creature) simply...sprang from my apartment. Never letting me out of its sight, it backed slowly up until it had reached the open window of my living room. The night breeze gently rustled the curtains and it turned its nose slightly upwards, catching scent of the freedom which had eluded it in its previous life (lives?). Those powerful leg muscles then flexed once, setting off a wave of motion beneath its heavy coat of fur and it jumped through the window towards the alleyway below. I listened, hoping that the fall would do the deed which I could not bring myself to do when the creature had been standing before me, only to hear the disheartening sound of claws scrambling away down the dark pavement. Though I knew that it was wrong to allow such an abomination of nature to run free, I wished it good riddance and prayed that I never laid eyes upon it again.